Broken
by SoundGeare
Summary: Inspired by a line from the movie Fight Club, "You have to accept the possibility that god doesn't like you..." What if a sadistic, omnipotent entity decided on a whim to tear apart a person's life and drive him insane. What if Link, the retired adventurer, loving husband, and hardworking farmer, caught the eye of this entity. What if it decided to "play" with him forever...
1. Pinion

"It's my opinion…" Malon began matter-of-factly as she pulled her shirt over her head. Once, many years ago, that would've been enough to bring them both to awkward blushes or worse, but the years of marriage had calloused the pair of them to the point where undressing together was nothing more than a nightly event.

"…that we should harvest early this year." She continued, "The past few winters came out of nowhere and we lost some of the crops."

Link was sitting on the edge of their double bed unlacing his leather work boots. The moment she finished talking, he had a retort already prepared. They'd had this argument the past few nights and it was all well-rehearsed. It wasn't even much of an argument, just something to bridge the gap between day and night, between when they were sweaty hardworking farmers and when they were a man and a wife.

"But don't you remember what happened when we harvested early the year before last," Link said, pausing to grunt as he tore the dust coated boot from his foot, "Half of what we harvested wasn't good for anything but compost and feeding the animals."

As Link got to work on the second boot, he heard Malon sigh behind him and she said, "That's true, but at least it was _something_. If we wait too long, it'll all wither where it stands and die while we watch."

Link noted the tone in her voice as he wrenched the boot from his foot and tossed it to join its brother in the corner. She was thinking about the dark times a long time ago, when the entirety of Hyrule was controlled by an evil tyrant. There had been something in the air during his rule. Plants would die suddenly, animals would inexplicably get sick and die a few days later.

Sometimes it wasn't just animals.

Talon, her father, had gotten sick during the final days of the tyrant's reign. When he was overthrown, she'd expected him to get better, hell, they all had. But he didn't. Talon continued to get worse and worse and there was nothing to be done.

One day he died, leaving her alone on to run the farm. Link had returned a few days later, but it hadn't been soon enough. It couldn't have been. Being alone in that house for a second would've been too long for her. She'd had to bury her father, and the memory would sometimes return to her unbidden.

Link sighed and walked around the bed, approaching his wife where she stood. Her arms hung loosely at her sides, but her hands were clenched into fists.

As gently as he could, Link pulled her close to him. She melted into his embrace, her arms snaking up his back slowly, still slightly shaky from the memory.

Resting his chin lightly on her shoulder so he was speaking directly into her ear, Link whispered, "I'm here, don't worry. I'm not going to leave, not again, not ever."

As if the words had truly possessed magical qualities, Malon relaxed and her strength returned. She wrapped her arms tightly around him. For those few moments, they were like one person. So close together, both physically and emotionally.

A chill ran through the air, slipping through the cracked bedroom window. Link felt Malon shiver involuntarily in his arms and he released her reluctantly.

"Come on, "Link murmured, "Let's go to bed, we've still got some work left to do in the morning."

Stepping toward the window, Link slid it closed with one hand and latched it with the other. The cold steel pick slid into place with a hollow sounding click.

Link walked around the bed, blowing out the flickering bedside lamp before climbing in with Malon. A moment later they were absentmindedly embracing each other, lying wrapped up in the thick wool blanket and a comforting tangle of limbs.

A calm air of safety fell over them, a net that could catch anything.

* * *

Link awoke to a tickling itch on the tip of his nose. He fought to ignore it for as long as he could, hoping instead to remain in his peaceful sleeping state for the rest of his life, but it won in the end.

Sitting up, Link looked around the room through bleary eyes, rubbing them with one hand and propping himself up with the other. Link leaned over to shake Malon gently by the shoulder, there was a good deal of light in the room already so they should be getting to work soon, but she wasn't there

Link was alone in the bed, and alone in the room. It was completely empty, and for some reason the emptiness seemed to expand the walls so that it was a massive chamber left barren. Link clambered out of the bed to stand on sleep-weakened muscles.

Link started to head for the door, intending to go downstairs, but something caught his eye. It was like a smudge at the corner of his vision and once he noticed it, the thing was impossible to look away from.

Link moved slowly as he approached the window, warily intrigued. It was like nothing he'd ever seen before, and it fascinated him. While the room was full of light like that from the early morning sun, it truly had no source. The window seemed to be painted over, but that didn't quite express the truth of what Link saw.

It was as if the window were a pool of water, dark water, black as ink, and thick too. The surface of the window moved slowly, its surface shifting like the surface of a wind beat lake. In one place the surface erupted in a circular mass of ripples that stretched across the entirety of the window.

After a few moments, though, the ripples faded away and the surface was unmarred once more.

Link stepped back, away from the oddity and turned toward the door. Whatever that was, she might be interested in seeing it.

Link grasped the doorknob and twisted it, but was surprised when the door didn't budge. Trying again, Link pushed harder against the door, hearing the old wood creaking beneath the pressure.

Link was about to push again, push harder and try forcing his way through but a thought occurred to him.

"Malon? Is that you? Are you… holding the door shut?"

There was no answer, only more silence.

Link pressed against the door again, assuring himself that it truly was stuck.

He sighed, and prepared to through his weight against the brittle wood. He didn't want to destroy the door, or damage it in any way. Like most things in the old farmhouse, the door had been made by Malon's father and thus had special meaning to her.

But Link didn't like the idea of being stuck in their bedroom for hour after hour until they found a way to get the door open.

Link took a step back from the door and, bracing himself for the impact, threw his shoulder against the door.

At the last moment, the door swung open and Link found himself falling into an unimaginably vast space where there seemed to be nothing at all as far as the eye could see.

Link fell into the nothing and became a part of the nothing. And in doing so, he became nothing.

Nothing…

* * *

The air was cold, so very, blisteringly cold. It seemed to bite and claw at Link's exposed skin, trying to get inside and freeze him there too.

Each stinging whiplash of a gentle breeze sent shivers down his back and forced him to hold his harms tightly together to keep them from shaking uncontrollably and to preserve some semblance of body heat in that cavity near his chest.

"Where am I…?" Link heard the words but couldn't believe they were his. He couldn't believe they had found a way past his violently chattering jaw and managed to come out un-mangled.

Link looked around, trying to take in everything; trying to find some clue as to what this place was.

Glassy white walls rose from a glassy white floor. There were no corners, just rounded edges and curves. The walls, floor, and ceiling all had a thin layer of mist on them.

A weak cry of laughter drew Link's attention. He spun around and found himself staring at a man lying on the floor. His fingers were blackened and his wrists were an ugly mix of deep blue and cracking white. His clothes were torn and ancient, barely more than rags.

A few stands of golden hair still hung from his head, though the others had long since disappeared.

"Who are you?" Link asked, "What is this place?"

The man laughed again, the sound coming out in a wheezy gasp that ended in a coughing fit. Finally when the man had finished coughing, he started to speak, "Wish I knew I don't know why it happened don't let it go away…"

His words trailed off into a slow gurgle, but he suddenly became animated again, leaping up from his place on the floor and grasping Link by his shirt collar, "It's been forever but that's no time at all It just started one day don't let it take you oh goddesses don't let it. Don't let it in…"

The man collapsed back to the floor, and continued to repeat that last line in a tortured whisper, "Don't let it. Don't let it in. Don't let it…"

His eyes seemed to be staring at something far away, far beyond the reach of any normal person's eyes. He just kept repeating that phrase, getting quieter with each go around until no sound came out as he twitched his lips.

Link felt his balance shift suddenly. Something changed, somewhere. As Link watched, a hairline crack began to climb up one of the icy walls, growing and splitting off until the wall was little more than a spider web of broken ice and the darkness beyond that.

He felt something land on his shoulder, and, looking down at it, realized it was a shard of ice.

With horror, Link looked about the cavern and realized it was coming down. Link felt his feet begin to move on their own before he could even think to order them to. The icy floor was slick beneath the fiery cold soles of his feet, and his progress was slow.

A painful sounding cough came from behind Link and he immediately remembered the decrepit man. For a moment he considered leaving anyway, leaving the man behind. But his instincts wouldn't let him; he had been a hero, once.

Link twisted around but found himself alone in the icy cavern.

Dry raspy laughter floated through the air, sounding like something from a nightmare.

Link shook himself and, doing his best to ignore the now hysterical laughter, made a break for the only way out of the room. By a stroke of luck he was able to slip through the uneven archway just moments before it collapsed into a pile of ice chips, sealing the room off.

Link ran through the tunnels, taking some passageways while ignoring others. There was no way for him to tell if he was making the right decision, or even heading the right way, so he trusted his gut.

With a groan of desperation, Link found himself in a dead end. He was standing at the mouth of a room with only one exit. As Link prepared to turn away and continue his mad dash, the ice above and around him began to rumble even more violently than it already was.

A deafening creak was Link's only warning as the archway collapsed, utterly decimated.

Link scrambled over to the ravaged wall, searching desperately for some way to bypass it. But the search was useless, as Link quickly realized the barrier was solid as stone and utterly immobile.

Turning to examine the rest of the room, Link saw it in detail for the first time. Up against the far wall, nestled into what would have been a corner if this place had any true edges, was a pool of water. From this distance, Link couldn't see enough of it to determine its depth.

Approaching the pool, Link gazed down into its crystal clear depths, amazed by how far he could see through the still water. Also, horrified by the same thing, horrified by how many dozens of meters seemed to stand between Link and the bottom. But down there, Link thought he could see something, though the great distance made the image blurry.

Link was still unsure of whether or not to dive when the cavern began to shake with unprecedented ferocity. The roof above seemed to be peeling away in huge chunks and layers, falling down and crashing against the floor in a spray of razor sharp ice. One of the shards caught Link in his left forearm, digging into the flesh and sticking there.

As Link reached to tear the ice out, something struck him in the center of his back and Link found himself flung down into the transparent water.

The water was so cold as to feel like fire, biting and burning every inch of Link's body and rendering his muscles rigid and slow. He struggled to move his arms, his legs, but they refused to do anything but sway weakly.

Link could see a shadow filling the narrow vertical passage, and it wasn't until he was plunged into complete darkness that he realized what was happening. A portion of the ceiling must've fallen over the opening, blocking out any light.

Vaguely, Link wondered where that light had come from.

Link felt himself sinking slowly through the water. His body was still mostly immobile so he couldn't do much more than sink. As he progressed downward at the sluggish pace, Link felt his lungs start burning. His thoughts began to move more slowly, each one becoming more and more indistinct.

Link felt his vision fade to black while distant laughter rang in his ears.

* * *

Like awoke to the feeling of grass poking the back of his neck. He sat up and looked around, confusion and curiosity filling him. He hadn't been in a forest since…

This was that very same forest. The lost woods. The home of the kokiri children.

The thought was interrupted when he realized the lower half of his body was submerged in a cool blue pond. Climbing to his feet, Link looked around in wonder. The woods didn't seem to have changed at all; just the same as they had been all those years ago, and all those years before that.

Link left the pond behind and began to walk out among the trees. Anyone who came into these woods, the lost woods, were supposedly never seen again. Link wondered if the same rule would apply to him, since he had grown up believing he was one of the kokiri.

As he walked, Link could hear children's laughter in the distance. It was light and full of joy; the sound of it made Link relax. He took a deep breath, inhaling the lively forest air.

The ground shuddered beneath Link's feet. The sudden motion nearly threw him to the floor. As it was he only steadied himself by grabbing hold of a nearby tree.

The earth was still again a moment later and Link released the tree. Link tried to dismiss the sudden turmoil, but he couldn't. The recent memory loomed over him.

Link stared at the ground, his eyes locked on the shadow that lay there. It wasn't his shadow, it wasn't the shadow of any of the trees. It was much too large for that. The shadow seemed to go on and on for miles, stretching on forever.

Feeling as if his body was far away, Link turned slowly and stared up at the shapeless form that blotted out the sun. Link couldn't make out what it was, but the massive size was enough to bury Link's curiosity. He started to step backward, retreating away from that _thing_, but his foot caught on a tree root.

He went toppling backward, letting out a quick shout as he struck the ground. To Link's great despair, the massive thing shifted in the sky so that its attention seemed to be on him alone.

Scrambling to his feet, Link turned and ran. He had gone no more than a dozen feet, however, before something wrapped around his chest with the strength of a Goron.

Link felt himself being lifted away from the ground.

The wind blew downward as Link was lifted into the air at an incredible speed. All of a sudden he was motionless again and left gulping for air at the extreme altitude.

Looking down at the thing that hand him in its grasp, Link saw something that looked like a human's skin, wrapping human fingers, giant human fingers.

He was moving again, being pulled toward something. Link saw a massive human eye, watched as it seemed to grow more massive by the second.

Link could feel the terror welling up in him like a solid thing, like living thing.

He couldn't control it anymore, his body seemed to act of its own accord, fueled by the solid living terror. One arm flew out, already balled into a fist, and dug into the soft tissue of the giant eye.

Suddenly Link was released, and only then was the full extent of his panic-born plan revealed to him. Link could feel the air whipping past as he fell at indeterminable speed. The wind dug into his eyes, pulling tears out, and forced its way into his mouth, pushing back the scream until it lay dormant in his chest.

Link saw something coming for him from the corner of his eye. It was that giant hand, reaching down for him at lightning-like speed. As Link watched, half frozen with fear, half flailing wildly, the hand swooped underneath him and tried to catch him.

However, the only part of Link's body that made contact was his left hand. It brushed the edge of the giant's hand and Link immediately knew something was wrong.

Looking over toward his left hand, Link realized with a sick sense of horror that the whole limb was gone from the elbow down. The sudden impact must've torn it off and flung it away in a different direction, or else it was lying there, dead, in the giant's hand. Link could see a scarlet trail of blood spurting from the ruined stump only to be torn away by the wind and lost.

Link felt like he could be sick, look at his ruined appendage.

However, when he finally managed to wrench his attention away from the stump, the alternate sight was not much better.

The ground was nearby, now, rushing up to meet him. Link tried to close his eyes, but the upward windstorm tore them open immediately.

Link made contact.

* * *

_Author's Note:_

_The idea for this came from several sources and is a meld of several ideas I've had over the last month. The first influence for this was the short story by Harlan Ellison "I Have No Mouth and, I Must Scream". For whoever hasn't read it, it's about several people who are being perpetually tortured by a sadistic supercomputer. Also they're immortal. The second big influence is the move Fight Club. Mainly one quote by Tyler, "You have to consider the possibility that God doesn't like you." It's kind of easy to see how that plays off of the short story. As for the actually plot mechanics, a cross between the accepted test in the white tower in The Wheel of Time, and the concept of the movie Groundhog's Day, though that doesn't come into play during this chapter. I hope you liked this, I was going for a stark contrast between the extremely realistic first scene and the surrealistically fantastic final two scenes. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you stick with it because it will only get better from here on out. I'm going to try to do two updates per week, one on tuesday night, and one on saturday night. But that might be too much, I don't know, we'll see. Please review, let me know what you think so I can give you the second chapter._

_P. story title and chapter titles have a correlation, try to figure it out :)_


	2. Wish

Link suddenly snapped into wakening. He felt as if he had been awake forever, but part of him knew that he had been somewhere else just moments ago. Somewhere dark, alone, it must have been sleep.

"I just wish…" Malon began, struggling to find the right words, "I just wish he was still with us, my dad."

Link froze in the middle of his action. He had been about to toss his boot over into the corner where it would join the first one, but he didn't remember taking the first one off. Link felt a shiver start to build in his spine, but he ignored it.

Dropping the boot gently, Link rose from the bed and walked around it to where his wife was standing. Her arms were pulled across her chest, gripping her elbows defensively. As Link neared, he began to pull her close to him, to hold her and keep back any pain. That was all he wanted, for Malon to be happy.

"I… I just," Malon began, but Link cut her off gently.

"I'll always be here for you, don't worry. I won't leave you, not again, never again."

At those words, Malon collapsed into his embrace, surrendering her last semblance of resistance. Just the same, Link collapsed into her and they seemed to stay there forever, just locked up in each other.

"I love you," Link whispered into her ear, "I won't leave you alone."

If he had been another inch away, Link wouldn't have been able to hear the muffled "I love you too", but he wasn't, and he did.

There were no more words after that, because none were needed. All they needed was each other. Link held onto her as he attempted to hide her from the last memory of her father, and to hide it from her.

He didn't know how long they stood there like that, but eventually Link felt Malon shiver slightly in the cold air.

"I guess we should try to get some sleep," Link muttered, "Long day of work tomorrow."

"Yeah…" Malon sighed.

They separated at that. Malon began to crawl into bed while Link turned toward the open window. Through it he could see the night sky and a dim silhouette of the ranch.

A chilling breeze slid through the window, and Link pulled it shut in a single motion. The window thudded against the sill and rattled once. For some reason, Link locked the window.

Turning away from the window, Link walked around the bed and crawled in with Malon. For a moment there was silence, but then Malon said, "Thank you, I… sometimes it's just hard to remember it and… well to have it always there."

Link looked at her and smiled, "I'll always be there too, you won't have to face it alone, okay?"

Malon smiled back at him and mouthed the words "I love you".

"I love you too," Link said softly, shifting his head closer and kissing her.

After that Link blew out the bedside lamp and they were left in a soft comfortable darkness. It didn't press in on them, and it didn't seem desolate or empty. It just was. Just like they were, and they were happy, so nothing could hurt them.

After a while, Link's thoughts faded and he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Link felt himself coming around to consciousness though he delayed it as he could. He refused to open his eyes, hoping to remain asleep forever. He wasn't sure why, though. There was work to be done, and if he neglected his chores they wouldn't just go away.

Yet Link continued to put it off. Through his eyelids Link could tell the sun was up, but he continued to pretend he was still asleep.

Something began to press on his chest, like a fist being slowly driven through his ribs, then his heart, and lungs, then out the other side. Link's eyes shot open and he clutched his chest, trying to somehow fight off the burst of agony. Nothing he did affected it though, and after nearly a minute it seemed to fade away of its own accord.

The episode left Link gasping on the floor, drenched in sweat. He lay where he was for a moment, trying to regain his equilibrium, but after a few seconds a steady pressure began to build in his chest.

Link leapt to his feet and ran for the door, trying vainly to escape the pain. But as his hand closed around the knob, Link remembered the surreal effect it had had the last time he'd gone through that door.

The ice, the crazed man, the dead man, the giant, dying…

Link recoiled from the door and spun around to look at the window. Just as before it was pitch black, deep black, liquid black. So black that Link could almost see his reflection in its surface.

Link shook his head, stepping back toward the bed. This time he would just wait it out. If leaving the room through him into a nightmare, then he would just stay here.

An invisible fist slammed into Link's face, knocking him backwards and into the air. Link landed in a heap on the floor and struggled to find his footing. Something knocked his feet out from underneath him and another something seemed to kick him sharply in the ribs.

An ethereal sound rumbled through the room, a disembodied torrent of giddy laughter that was so powerful as to hurt Link's ears.

Link climbed to his knees and tried to crawl away from this assailant. After a few feet, however, he was squashed flat against the ground. Feebly reaching out one hand, Link caught hold of the window frame. Somehow his hand seemed to go through the strangely black glass and disappear into it like a pool of ink.

In a sudden fearful burst, Link took hold of the windowsill with both hands and dragged himself out into the darkness.

Link fell out into an abyss.

* * *

Link drifted through an endless expanse of darkness. Twisting, spinning, falling forever. There didn't seem to be any semblance of _up_ in this place.

And there didn't seem to be anything else here, just him.

Link tried to move his hand and found that it was difficult, extremely difficult, like paddling through molasses.

At that thought the air became hard to breathe and Link found himself starting to suffocate. Each time he tried to inhale, the air stuck to his throat and clogged up his lungs. Just breathing this air was killing him.

Link could feel his head growing tight, and his vision beginning to blur. Link tried to gasp in more air, but every breath was just making it worse. His throat felt like it was full of sludge, and his lungs seemed to be encased in stone.

Then as suddenly as it had changed, the air returned to its normal consistency. Link gasped in air greedily, trying desperately to sate his burning lungs. As he struggled to take in air, Link hurdled through the darkness at dizzying speed, twisting and turning in every direction imaginable.

The disorientation sank its teeth into Link and, the moment he'd stopped gasping for air, his stomach emptied itself. Link gagged as the acrid substance left his mouth slower than he'd thought possible. It was almost as if the vomit had crawled across his tongue to purposefully disgust him.

Once the vomit had left him behind, it floated away from him in a pale green mass, its shape shifting and swelling with the current of this place. Then, all at once, it faded from his sight and was no more.

The air grew cold at that point, so much so that Link could see his breath turning to mist before his eyes. That too floated away and dispersed, turning from something solid and visible to more nothingness.

All of it was nothing, nothing as far as the eye could see. Link must have been the only real thing in this whole place, the only thing that didn't disperse and join the nothing.

But what if he did? What if he would fade away soon, what if he was already.

Link threw his attention wholeheartedly upon himself, hoping that he could discover and somehow prevent the process of his own gradual nonexistence. But even as he watched, nothing happened; and the longer he watched the more nothing happened.

However, his gaze was so intent that Link didn't even realize he was no longer alone. Up ahead there had begun something, something that was real and existed and was almost definitely tangible and touchable. But Link was so transfixed and terrified that he might disappear at any moment that he never even saw the something until he had knocked up against it.

The presence of another thing in this nothingness was so sudden and unexpected that several moments had passed before Link thought that he might hold onto the something and give up his solitude. At that moment, the moment the idea occurred to him, Link latched onto the metallic thing and made as if to never release it.

Once he had dutifully attached himself to the anomalous piece of matter, Link took it upon himself to examine it fully for the first time. The majority of the thing's structure was a pair of long metallic poles, between which smaller poles stretched.

It was a shiny silver ladder, floating through the abyss with him.

Once he had categorized the thing, it lost his interest entirely. Instead Link found himself transfixed by a pulsating orb of while light which was floating near the far end of the ladder. It seemed brilliant and perfect, alluring and out of reach.

But Link could fix that, all he had to do was climb the ladder and reach toward it, touch it with one outspread finger and he could know the ecstasy that was surely emitted along with the pulsing white light.

Link climbed up one rung, then another. The sudden shift of weight caused the ladder to swing and sway in the darkness, but Link held tight and continued his ascent. At one point he knew that he was facing the exact opposite way to which he had begun, and that he was also, in fact, upside down and technically climbing lower.

Despite his disorientation and the difficulty he faced, Link persisted in his pursuit of the white light at the other end of the ladder.

There were only a few more feet to go, then he would be able to reach out with his hand and touch it, feel the gentle caress of the glow and the soft warmth that surely came with it.

Having finally reached the last rung, Link held tightly with his right hand while reaching out hesitantly with his left. Feeling a mixture of nervous hesitation and fervent restlessness, Link plunged his hand into the center of the light and prepared himself for the euphoria.

Link felt himself being ripped apart a million times in one second, then everything disappeared.

* * *

Link woke up in an endless green forest. Towering trees covered the sky with their strange combination of having a single blade-like leaf that stretched the plant's entire height. They were everywhere and Link had a hard time seeing for more than a few feet in any direction.

Link walked around the thick green stems, examining the terrain and his surroundings. The ground was covered in mismatched rocks and stones along with a multitude of boulders standing haphazardly around the area.

Looking up at the sky, Link nearly gasped when he saw how massive the clouds seemed to be. Just one cloud stretched across the whole horizon, and that could have been over a mile.

Everything he saw in this place made him suspicious, and Link wasn't sure it was unjustified.

That was when the clicking started. Heavy metallic snaps that could have been two swords striking together at high speed. The sounds were coming from every direction, even underground it seemed. Link looked around frantically, trying to ascertain the origin of the strange noise.

An ant stepped into the clearing.

It wasn't a normal ant, which was barely a speck when it was visible at all. This ant was nearly seven feet long with pincers that could probably cut through steel. Two multi-faceted eyes seemed to glitter in the sunlight as it examined Link. Its antennae were twitching erratically.

Link wished he had his sword, he wished he had a weapon of some sort. Link wished he had anything that could be put between his body and this monstrous ant. But he was empty handed, and the ant, with its blood red carapace gleaming dully, seemed intent on Link.

He tried to step back and behind one of the strange trees, but the moment Link moved, the ant matched him. Link took a step backward and the ant took a step forward.

Link took a step back, and ant stepped forward.

Step back, step forward.

Link backed into something hard and smooth. Spinning around, Link found himself face to face with two more of the monstrous insects. At this distance he could see the serrated edges of their pincers and Link knew getting caught in one of those would be his demise.

Link backed away from the pair of ants by one step, then turned to run away from the trio in a direction free of ants.

It wasn't free of ants. Once Link began to move in that direction, a red shelled monstrosity appeared to block his path. Link sidestepped the bug monster and picked a new direction only to be cut off again.

Link ran around the new ant and sprinted as fast as he could.

Something unseen caught Link's foot and he felt himself falling to the ground. It seemed to happen in slow motion, because the moment Link's balance shifted he could see the ants moving in on him. He could see every pair of pincers that snapped in preparation, and ever antennae that twitched.

The moment Link's knees touched the ground, he felt something razor sharp and crushingly strong dig into his leg. Link felt the flesh rend and the bones snap.

In another place, a chunk of flesh was instantly torn away.

A gouge, a rend, a tear, a cut, a bite.

The ants swarmed him.

Link died

* * *

Sorry about the super huge wait, but this story turned out to be harder to write than I expected. Anyway, I'll try to update more frequently from now on.


	3. Last

A sharp intake of breath was the first sign to Link that he was alive. Slowly, piece by piece, the rest of his existence came together.

He was in his room, he was standing by the window, and he was holding Malon in his arms.

"I'm sorry…" she murmured with her face pressed into his shoulder. Link realized by the twin rivulets of cool liquid running down his arm that she was crying, or had been. Feeling a pang of sorrow and guilt, Link pulled her closer to him and did his best to comfort her.

"I swear… this is the last time." Malon said firmly, though her voice still shook slightly from suppressed sobs. "I'm not going to mourn any more, it's been long enough."

Taking a deep breath, Malon slid out of his embrace and took a quick step back, as if unsure. "Thank you," she said softly.

Link smiled and said softly, "The least I can do…" then louder, "I love you, Malon."

"Love you too."

Link leaned in and kissed her gently, retreating slowly as a chill slid up his spine. "I guess we'd better get to bed," he said, turning to the window and taking a firm grasp on the wooden frame, "Work to do tomorrow…"

With the rasp of wood against wood, the window slid closed and Link latched it. He lingered there for a moment, gazing out into the seemingly endless night, the darkness that seemed to stretch on forever. He could just barely make out the barn, though it was no more than two dozen feet away.

Link looked up at the moon and was surprised to find it several days smaller than the last time he'd looked upon it. But that couldn't be possible, he checked the moon often. He could have sworn he'd looked at the glowing mass just the night before, but the proof hung up there in front of him, a sliver of a crescent where there should have remained half of the moon.

Despite the closed window, a shiver shook Link's body and he had to take hold of the window frame to stop his knees from buckling.

Memories came flooding back, terrible memories. Memories of dying, memories of fear, and of pain, and loneliness.

The endless darkness, the madman, the giant, the ants, the icy cavern…

The list went on, and Link found himself trembling as the memories filled every inch of his consciousness.

"Is something wrong?" the voice cut into his trance, dispelling his isolation at the same time it demolished the last bit of reserve he'd been able to hold onto.

"I… it's the…" Link stammered out, pulling one hand up toward his head as if the quell a headache. The hand only made it part of the way, stopping just inches from his face.

He could remember losing the hand, the whole arm. He could remember it being torn away by the momentum of his falling body, but he could also remember it being ripped apart by those monstrous insects.

Whatever this thing was, though, he had to face it on his own, Link knew that. He knew it in the core of himself, in the deepest part of his own mind. This… _thing…_ would only serve to upset Malon.

He had to handle it all himself…

"Nothing…" Link murmured, loud enough that his wife could hear, "Just a… a nightmare I had. Something strange."

Without saying anything else, Link walked around and crawled into the bed. He could see the worry in Malon's eyes, the sure belief that it wasn't _nothing_.

"Don't worry," Link said as sweetly as he could manage with those memories still stirring inside of him, "Just go to sleep."

She seemed unsure but, after no more than an instant's hesitation, she lay her head down on the feather pillow and closed her eyes.

Link watched her for a moment before turning out the light, trying to memorize every part of her in that moment. Something was happening, something awful he knew that.

The part that worried him was that he seemed to be losing Malon. He could remember the past two nights vividly, every moment of them.

_Talk, undress, comfort Malon, go to sleep, then the nightmare._

_Undress, comfort Malon, go to sleep, then the nightmare._

_Comfort Malon, go to sleep, then the nightmare._

By any stretch of logic that Link employed, he would soon be torn away from her completely.

That thought made his blood turn to ice.

* * *

Link smelled the fire first, before he had a chance to open his eyes or even feel the immense heat.

Tearing open his eyes, Link flew to his feet the moment his thoughts put two and two together. The house was on fire, and from the smoldering air, Link guessed that the whole building was up in flames.

As he feet struck down, Link saw the thick black fingers of smoke that poked out between the floorboards. Link ran toward the door, trying to throw it open and go through at the same time.

Somehow Link heard the tired snore over the roaring din. Somehow the tiny noise stood out to him more than the whole ton of burning menace that surrounded him.

It was Malon, she was still here, still in bed.

Link had taken no more than a single step out of the room before he was bolting back inside. He flew to the bedside and immediately found Malon laying there, wrapped up in the blankets.

He tried to shake her gently by the shoulders, then he tried to whisper her name.

Neither provoked a reaction, so he tried shaking her less gently and saying her name loudly. Nothing happened. Somehow she seemed oblivious to the world, as unaware of the fire as she was of him.

Scooping her up in his arms, Link stepped away from the bed and turned back to the doorway. Taking a breath of the foul air, Link felt ready to vomit.

Ignoring the sensation, Link ran toward the door, already thinking of his escape route. He would have to turn almost immediately unless he wanted to run out and over the stairway banister. He didn't.

Changing direction the moment he cleared the door, Link bolted down the stairs, weaving around the small spurts of flame that spewed up from the wooden steps.

Despite his panic fueled steps, the bottom didn't seem to be growing any closer. As he ran, the stairs stretched out ahead of him, taunting Link with the hint of escape.

He could feel his body beginning to grow tired, beginning to submit to the exhaustion even as he struggled weakly to push it away. His legs were feeling sore, burning from the heat in the air and lanced through with pain in a dozen different places.

If he looked, Link was certain he would find jagged ant bites in those places.

Link felt his lungs growing weak, his thoughts getting thicker. Each breath seemed more poison than air.

For a moment, just a moment, the thought slid through his mind. It was immediately dismissed, shoved away and discarded. But it had been there and just that mere fact was what terrified Link

_If I leave her behind,_ Link could have screamed as the thought came back unbidden, _I could make it. I could get out and save myself…_

Link forced it out of his head again, enraged by the prospect of it. How could he abandon her? He couldn't, he wouldn't.

Something shifted beneath his feet. With a thunderous _crack_ that roared over the flames, a section of the stairway gave way.

Link felt himself falling through empty space. In that sickening moment, Link flailed out in a burst of movement and instinct. At the same time he shoved Malon away from him and latched onto the edge of the chasm.

He winced as her unconscious body struck the wooden step, but at least she was okay. Link clung to the splintered edge, daring to look down only once.

A thousand foot deep hole was waiting to swallow him completely, filled with flames and hideous laughter. It stabbed in and burned his ears the same way the fire would burn his body.

Link pulled himself up by the board's splintered remnants, flailing his feet in the open space below as he tried to catch hold of something.

Despite the lack of footholds, Link was able to drag himself over the edge and most of the way onto the step. Taking the moment rasp a choking breath, Link looked down on Malon and saw that she was moving slightly.

"Malon…" Link croaked.

With sudden jerky movements, Malon raised her head and turned to face him. Her eyes seemed to be holes of deep darkness, unmatched by anything. They sucked the light out of the area, even dimming the flames around them. Her mouth was twisted and horrendous, filled with long sharp teeth that glimmered blood red.

A raspy roar of laughter leapt from her open mouth as Malon leapt toward him with outstretched claws.

Link fell backward into the fiery chasm, toppled beneath the weight of his horrifically twisted wife.

* * *

Link's eyes flew open and each of his muscles spasmed in turn. He found himself shaking and twisting uncontrollably, getting wrapped up in the blankets so that eventually he was completely immobilized by them. Once he was tied up, Link's body continued to struggle desperately, flailing his limbs around and clenching then unclenching his hands with such ferocity that Link expected to find bloody tears in his palms from fingernail gashes.

He fought for breath while his body spasmed and twisted. He was covered in sweat from head to toe and the blankets soaked in so much that they were moist and heavy.

As if in a climactic display, Link's back arched so drastically that he could feel it popping and knotting. He groaned as it bent farther and farther.

His head was close to his toes.

Then, as suddenly as it had come upon him, the spasms stopped and Link was left in a sweaty, panting heap atop the bed. Still tied up in blankets, he needed several minutes to disentangle himself from the mass.

Finally he rolled out of the bed and crawled feebly across the wooden floorboards. Link's eyes were twitching around rapidly, scanning vainly for the invisible assailant, but after several minutes of crawling like a beetle and peering around terrified like a hunted deer, Link collapsed to the floor and lay there.

However, instead of the respite he had hoped to find, Link felt like he was being watched. He could all but feel a dozen, a thousand eyes boring into him. He could hear them swiveling in their sockets, following his every movement. Some of them moved with the slow rise and fall of his chest.

Up and down, up and down, up and…

Link leapt to his feet, unable to bear it anymore. He swung his head back and forth, searching for the watchers, wherever they were.

"Come out!" he screamed, "Where are you!?"

Suddenly he heard a desperate scratching noise and an inhuman growl. Link spun around and managed to catch a glimpse of _something_ disappearing under the bed. He just stared at where it had been, frozen.

"There." Link said hollowly, "I go there… after that…"

His hands were trembling, he realized, and Link clutched them together to stop it. _Something_, there was _something_ down there.

Link shook his head quickly and jumped atop the bed. He reached up on the wall and took down the thing he hadn't touched in years.

The cool blue handle felt right in his hand.

His sword, he'd missed his sword even if he hadn't missed the danger that went with it. Quickly Link buckled it on and stepped off the bed. But still he didn't follow that _something_ under the bed, not immediately.

He walked over to Malon's bedside table and took the silver picture frame off of it. With shaking hands he opened to latch and pulled the picture out. It was hand drawn with considerable skill, a picture of the two of them. When they were younger.

Just looking down at the two of them when they were young and happy, it nearly drew a tear to Link's eye. Wiping away the beginning of the tear, he tucked the picture away and took a deep, readying breath.

Not feeling any more prepared, Link dropped to the floor and scrabbled down after that _thing_. It seemed that the dark space beneath the mattress went on forever, until suddenly the floor dropped out beneath Link and he found himself falling through empty air.

* * *

Link fell through the darkness for so long that it began to seem almost static. Not an endless space, but one finite blank canvas.

He stopped falling, realizing in that moment that he had never been falling in the first place. Link looked behind him, half expecting and half hoping to see the way back into his room.

Just more blankness.

Link took a step forward and felt something brush against his back. He almost jumped before realizing it was just his sword.

With one hand Link began to draw the blade, while the other searched out the drawing. Holding the picture before his eyes, Link was just able to make out the picture. It was blurry and the light was dim, but the memory and the sight of Malon was enough to calm him.

Replacing the picture, Link took his sword in both hands and called out, "Damn you! Why don't you come and fight me, instead of cowering!"

He knew that it wasn't a smart thing to say. That much was obvious, but there couldn't be anything worse than what had been done to him already.

He shuddered and shouted again into the blank expanse, "Do your worst! I can take you now!" Link wasn't sure that he could, but still the words left his throat.

The darkness seemed to morph around him until nothing gained substance and he was in a hallway. The corridor seemed to stretch out on either side for miles. Every dozen or so feet there was a flickering torch that burned low. Between the torches were deep pits of darkness that seemed tangible.

The walls were covered in grime and filth. In some places the paint had peeled away, but instead of stone or wood beneath there seemed to be a bleeding wound. Blood dripped out of the rends in pulsing streams, as if there was a heart somewhere inside the wall that pushed it out.

Link breathed deeply, filling his lungs carefully and then emptying them.

He readied himself, holding the sword out ahead of him and advancing. The first step planted him a single step ahead, but by the second he was a dozen feet away from where he had started.

The effect was disorientation, but Link managed to keep his head from spinning and his stomach from churning by breathing deeply and focusing himself on the sword blade instead of the surroundings.

Footsteps rang out in the distance, and a peal of high pitched laughter tore through the eerie air. Then the footsteps were behind him, causing Link to spin 180degrees. There was nothing, though.

Link felt something touch his back, but before he was able to dismiss it as his sheathe, it began to squirm against his skin. Link spun around but found nothing. He shivered, rethinking the moment of contact.

It had scrawled something against the flesh of his back, spelling out the word "FUN TIME" with a hard sharp finger.

The sound of grating and scratching drew Link's attention to the filthy stones at his feet. It was as if an invisible knife was carving out words in the hard stone.

"NO MATCH," it said in oddly proportioned letters, "LOOK UP"

Link's blood turned cold. He could almost feel the pressure of something above him. There could be anything, any number of things.

Link obeyed and found himself staring at a face. It was human, embedded in the stone as if it had been melded into the bricks themselves. Pale skin melted into slime covered stone with too much ease. The eyes opened and stared at Link.

Blue eyes, he recognized them.

"No…" Link groaned out, barely able to keep from collapsing, "Malon… no…"

Malon's mouth opened as if to speak, but instead of words, a snake leapt out. The creature was black as ashes. Black eyes, black scales, even the teeth were black.

Link tried to raise his sword but the soot colored reptile hit him in the chest before the blade had moved more than two inches. Link felt fangs digging into his chest, spurting a hot feeling out into his body.

Link started to push it away from him, but found he couldn't move.

The sword dropped from his hand, moving as if through syrup. It fell through the air and struck the ground blade first.

The ground exploded in a shower of glass shards and Link found himself falling down into it. Though he was immobilized, Link could feel as every razor of glass dug into his flesh. Link fell down into the lake of glass, feeling himself being cut to ribbons while still sinking deeper.

Blood left his body as fast as it was replaced by venom. After what seemed like eternity inside the maelstrom of agony, Link felt his consciousness ebbing away.

He welcomed death this time.


	4. Help Me I Am In Hell

Link lay in bed with his arms around Malon. The darkness around them had fallen like a shroud, pressing against them and holding them together. In that darkness, there was only the two of them. She was asleep by now, but Link still lay awake. She usually fell asleep before him, and Link would lay next to her just enjoying the proximity. At this distance he could smell her hair. One of his fingers was resting on her cheek and Link could have spent hours just enjoying the softness of her skin.

This was heaven, as close to it as anyone could come. Laying here next to his wife, the woman he loved. The knowledge that he would spend the next day with her then lay with her again the next night. That was bliss. A smile touched Link's lips and lingered as he thought back through their years together. This was heaven, it must be. Link had been happy and content for almost as long as he could remember.

Link felt himself fading off to sleep, murmuring over and over in his head that he was in heaven.

But he wasn't. A thought flared up in Link's mind like a red hot coal. This was hell, it must be. Not Malon, she was everything he had described her as, but the memories that had suddenly been born. He knew they were real, too real. So real that Link could almost feel the pincers biting into his flesh and the icy air inside that cavern. They were both real, more than fantasies.

The pain from those memories still burned as if it had only occurred minutes ago. And then the realization came. The one he had made just yesterday, last night, or was it tonight. He was being torn away from Malon, or she was being torn away from him. Either way he could only imagine the torture he would be put through tomorrow, or possibly the next night, when Malon was gone.

Link felt his breath starting to quicken and he instinctively tightened his grip around Malon. Some part of him thought that if he could just hold on hard enough and long enough, then he could fight of the inevitable. If only he held onto Malon, then nothing could hurt him.

Malon murmured something in her sleep and Link felt her shifting weakly. He caught the words "too tight," and realized that he must be hurting her. The thought repelled him and Link loosened his grip immediately. But then the fear and insecurity began to seep back in.

But maybe if he didn't sleep, then maybe he wouldn't wake to find her gone. That seemed to make some kind of sense. It was a weak idea, Link knew. For he couldn't go forever without sleep, and the next time Link closed his eyes he might lose Malon forever. That was a horrifying thought, but it was better than losing her now. Anything was better than losing her now.

So Link clung to that bit of hope. In time it became distorted, changing to a desperate fantasy. If only he managed to stay awake through the night, then it would all over. The nightmares, both during sleep and waking hours, would cease. It was crazy, but Link thought he might die if he allowed the fantasy to crumble.

So there he was, struggling to stay awake despite his dry burning eyes. They ached and Link could feel the lids constantly threatening to shut despite his pleas.

That was when the itch started. Sometime in the middle of the night while he was fighting for a vain fantasy, something on the edge of Link's vision began to vie for his attention. Link had been focusing on Malon, feeling her breathe and becoming fixated by her hair and the exact number of strands. But suddenly there was something on the edge of Link's vision, _screaming_ for his attention.

For the first half second he had been more than ready to find out what it was, but then he became skeptical. What if this was a ploy of some sort. Maybe staying awake truly was a way to free himself and the torturer didn't want to release him. Maybe the torturer was trying to distract him and lull him into sleep somehow. But Link was too smart for that, and he wouldn't be tricked.

Whatever was over there, Link did his best to ignore it. He counted Malon's hairs from top to bottom, then bottom to top. After he had done that an absurd amount of times, Link began searching for something else to distract himself. As he searched, Link found himself being drawn to whatever it was behind him. The unseen thing was alluring and Link's curiosity almost overcame him a multitude of times.

Each time Link managed to fight off the impulse, but each time he won a fragment of a second later. Once, Link found his head turning of its own accord before he could even think to stop it. That scared him, and Link wondered what would happen if he didn't manage to catch himself before it was too late. What would happen if he actually looked.

While he was preoccupied by overthinking it, Link's head turned of its own accord.

Link's breath caught as he found himself staring at the thing. A simple circle, with two dots and a curved line. It made a face, a smiling face with an absurdly wide grin. It reached literally from ear to ear, or from where one ear would've been to where the other would've been.

His eyes continued to wander and Link found himself staring at the multitude. A smiling face covered every surface of the room. The wooden dresser had faces carved into it. The walls had faces painted on, and the polished surface of the floorboards had been chipped away to make faces. Not all of the faces were the same size, either. Some were as large as dinner plates, while others were smaller than an egg.

The largest wasn't actually there, just a shadow. It seemed the curtains had been pulled shut, then lacerated to create a smiling-face shadow. There was no circle, just two eyes and a grinning mouth painted in sunlight. The faces almost seemed to be laughing at some grand joke. Something only they knew about. Something…

Link almost choked as his gaze flew back to the shadow. There were no shadows at night, no sunlight at night.

He whipped around and stared straight at the window. A face _had_ been cut into the drawn curtains, but that wasn't what drove horror and fear to fill Link's heart to the brim. It was morning! Link turned back to the bed, terrified of what he knew he'd find.

Malon was gone, as if she'd never existed. There wasn't even so much as a wrinkle on her side of the bed. Link looked back at the smiling face in the curtain and realized he'd just been let in on the joke.

Link screamed. He just couldn't take it any longer. This was hell. Nothing could possibly be more tortuous than this. Link roared out in his agony, the cry of a dying animal. But he wasn't dying, because that _fucking_ smiling face _thing_ wasn't done with him. He could die a million times over and it wouldn't matter. This might never end.

Link felt tears starting to form in his eyes but he ignored them, howling in desolation as he was. He remembered thinking last night that nothing bad had happened for years. This must be the price for that kind of luck.

Link felt his whole body grow weak and he just fell to the ground. Link's arm struck the bedpost as he fell, but it didn't matter. Link just lay there in his misery. Soon enough he would be dead in any of the most horrifying ways possible, but then he would be alive again. Torture, then rebirth for the singular purpose of more torture.

Link lay there sobbing like no grown man should, but he felt this was an exception. "Help… me…" Link's voice sounded strange to his ears, a choking sound that was full of pain, "this is hell, I'm in hell." His words broke off for a few moments, replaced by a wordless moan of utter defeat.

Then suddenly Link began to climb to his feet. Both hands pushing against the floor, then one hand grasping the bedpost and pulling himself up.

"This is hell, this must be hell," Link murmured over and over again. In a flurry of movement, Link flew to his feet and roared, "Oh Goddesses! What did I do wrong?" his words were intermixed with sobbing gurgles, "What did I do? I. AM. IN. HELL." Link screamed, "Why…" the last word left him with the last of his strength.

With dull, deadened eyes, Link glanced around the room. He knew deep down inside that he couldn't escape, that he couldn't avoid it.

"Where… is it?" he moaned.

A bit of movement caught Link's eye and he found himself looking at a painting that hung on the wall. It was a painting of hyrule field. Inside the painting was a dark figure, black as night. There were no features on its face, just a blank slate. Its whole body was the same, simply the deepest black and no more.

It seemed to be calling to him, beckoning with one of its hands.

With a last bit of resistance, a last bit of hope that he could somehow defeat this thing, Link turned to get his sword. It was gone. The place where it usually was simply remained empty. Link remembered dropping the sword into the sea of glass and realized it was gone. Simply gone forever. He would never see the weapon again.

Link shoved his hand into his pocket and sighed as he felt the folded picture there. He hadn't lost that, but he could. Link thought about leaving it behind, where it would be safe. But there was a chance he'd never return to this place. Never see the picture _or_ Malon again.

He left the picture in his pocket.

Link turned back to the painting and took a deep breath. Pain and fear, horror and torture, those were the things that waited for him, and there was no escape.

Link put one hand on the picture frame and hoisted himself inside. It felt strange to enter the picture, like climbing in a warm vertical pool.

The surface rippled as Link climbed through and disappeared.

* * *

Link walked the plains, looking around warily. This place seemed calm, peaceful, and that terrified Link. The only reason the torturer would lead him here was if something horrific lay just over the next hill. But Link didn't find anything horrible there, and he didn't find it over the next hill either. The peace just drove nails into Link's skull as he searched tirelessly for the new source of torment.

Link was almost able to convince himself that there was nothing here to hurt him. However, just that thought managed to re-arouse his suspicion. There had to be a trap somewhere, hidden inside this daydream. Somewhere among these rolling hills, there was a nightmare waiting for him.

On a whim, Link stopped. Still nothing happened. He was about to begin his leisurely yet paranoid stroll, then he happened to look down.

Just beside his boot there was a small mound of dirt. Moving about on the surface was a multitude of tiny specks.

Link crouched down to get a better look. It was an anthill. A hole at the peak of the mound erratically spat out ants. There were ants crawling toward the entrance as well, carrying bits of food. Some carried seeds, while others dragged bits of fruit or fragmented berries.

Link's blood turned to ice as he saw about a dozen ants dragging along tiny limbs. One had an arm clenched in its jaws, while another definitely seemed to be carrying a portion of a torso.

Link let out a cry of disbelief and leapt away from the hill. He kicked the hill over and turned to run. It was coming, whatever it was. The terrible thing was on its way. Surely he only had seconds left before it started.

As if on cue, the colors of the world began to seep away. The green of the grass became dull, then sepia, then grey. The sunlight stopped altogether. As Link observed, the world seeped out of existence and leaked away.

Then, for as far as Link could see, everything turned black. He was in a void, just absolute darkness. As the moments ticked past with unbearable sluggishness, Link began to feel a pressure all around himself. It was thick, and cold, like…

With a start, Link realized he was underwater. He slammed his mouth shut and stopped breathing altogether. Swiveling his head around, Link searched frantically for the surface, trying desperately to save himself. Far in the back of his head he knew there was no escape, but the animal part of him insisted in trying.

Link caught sight of a light, far off in the distance. It was just a speck, but Link began to swim in that direction regardless. As he approached, the light grew larger and larger, illuminating more of the water.

Link quickly came upon the source, despairing as he found a thing that could've been a fleshy, bulbous torch that pulsed with white light. His lungs began to burn as the shattered hope rolled over him with the weight of a tombstone.

His momentum carried him forward, and the light began to show him more of the surroundings. Link thought his eyes might pop out of his head as he caught sight of the fish. Beady eyes stared straight toward the light. A mouth full of teeth like swords twitched excitedly. A line of sinuous flesh connected the bulb of light to the fish's forehead.

A human form floated near the light with one hand reaching out toward it. Link tried to look closer but in the murky water he could only recognize faintly blonde hair.

Link's lungs felt like they might burst, and, unable to stop himself, Link took in a mouthful of air.

Except that it wasn't air.

Link drowned.

And Link died.


	5. Happiness in Slavery

Link found himself lying still in the darkness. It fell across him like a warm blanket. Just beside his own body, Link could feel Malon, already in the clutches of sleep. He let out a long, slow breath. Everything was alright. As long as he was with her, nothing could be wrong.

Wrong…

Something was wrong, terribly and irreparably wrong. However, at that same moment, a haze of drowsiness fell over Link. In moments he had trouble tracking an instantaneous thought from beginning to end.

In less than a minute he was asleep, with only a cautious itch in the back of his mind to warn him of the hell he would soon slip into.

* * *

Link blinked at the bright light that enveloped him. Blindingly brilliant, the light seemed to be coming from all directions at once. It seeped through some of the pale tiles, and bounced off of others.

Tiles lined the walls, lined the floor and the ceiling as well. This place seemed to be all white tiles as far as the eye could see. A long corridor all covered in white, square, _uniform_ tiles.

Link took note of his running feet for a moment and began to wonder. Why was he running? And what from?

"_What from?_" the question burned in his mind. He knew now what he was running from, and it didn't seem as if he could ever escape. He was a slave, a slave to the whimsy of the great sadist in the sky. Link didn't know where the torturer watched from, only that it took great joy from Link's eternal suffering and agony.

Link knew now that it had only allowed him those brief reprieves with Malon to drive him into deeper despair eventually. Now she was gone, forever. He should have been cherishing those moments with her, but he wasted them and now they were gone.

Or was he the one who was gone? Yes, that must be it. He had been torn away from her, not the other way around.

Link knew he was the torturer's slave and his sole purpose in that role was to provide some source of enjoyment. With a sudden sick sense of abandonment, Link wondered what would happen if he stopped playing. Certainly the torturer couldn't chase him if he didn't run.

He couldn't hurt Link if Link never cried out from the pain, and he could never scare Link if Link refused to flinch. It was shoddy logic, so completely full of holes that it was a flimsier support than a single string. Hardly any substance remained to sustain it.

But it was a type of logic that Link clung to. Desperate logic. Anything that could hold him here with his sanity. That was something that couldn't last at this rate. Soon enough he would fall apart, disintegrate into a billion tiny particles of consciousness, each holding just a fraction of his own true self.

Link fully expected to be defeated. He knew there was absolutely no chance of besting the torturer at its own game. Link tried anyways.

He stopped running. Simply ceasing movement could have never been harder. For some reason, primal level fear drove Link to restart his flight. Something was back there, something was behind him. It was coming, it was coming, it was coming for him.

Link's stomach lurched as his boots slid through the tiles. He just fell through the surface as if it were a construct of smoke and mirrors.

He fell down into the floor, past the floor and through the floor. Link descended down into the very depths of hell and kept on going. That last shard of sanity shattered, and those bits were ground into dust, and that dust was utterly pulverized until it was as fine as the air Link gulped into his lungs.

Then it was smashed again, and again.

* * *

The pain kept moving, shaking and twisting. It came from all around with the force of a thousand hurricanes. Every inch of movement was salt in the wound, a wound made by rolling in razor wire. Every second of survival became more desperate than the last, because only in the split second where life met death was Link able to attain some semblance of peace.

No man should die a thousand times.

These were Link's thoughts as he appeared in a white room. It was perfectly square. The ceiling was low and the walls loomed oppressively from every direction. Hard stone. A single door was set in one of the stone walls. Heavy metal bands held the aged wooden planks together.

The door was cracked, but Link couldn't see anything through the slight opening.

_And the first pig, built his house of straw. And when the big… bad… wolf came… he said…_

A voice boomed from every possible direction at once. Its sheer force was that of a forge hammer. Link could feel something trickling down his ear lobe and dripping slowly onto his neck.

He ignored that, as he felt his whole body quivering.

_Little pig… Little pig…_

Link could hardly feel the tears streaming down his face. His bones could have been broken for all he knew. Every one of them could've been reduced to less than dust. He wouldn't have noticed.

His whole existence was frozen, only to be momentarily thawed with each successive boom of that horrific voice.

_LET. ME. IN._

It was like a battering ram straight to Link's face. The simple trio of words knocked him flat and Link might've felt white stone digging into his supporting palms, leaving bruises there.

_OrI'llblowyourhousedown_

_Andhehuffedandhepuffedandheblewthehousedown_

_Andheatethelittlepig_

Link might've screamed if his lungs hadn't been full of cement. They burned like coals in his chest. His whole body was limp.

_And the second pig… heheh… he built a house of… hyahaheha… sticks…_

Link lay there, unmoving, unthinking. His whole existence quivered by the moment. Something whole, something shaking, something still, something fractured.

_And the big, BAD WOLF! He said, hahe, he said let me in... or I'll… do something bad to you…_

Link couldn't think. His head was a seething cauldron, ready to bubble over. Every thought was frozen the moment his mind birthed it.

_Andheatethelittlepig_

The room shook around Link. He could see spots of the white stone beginning to bulge and bend. It was almost like something was pressing in from the outside.

_And the third pig built his house of something stronger, stone, I think, let's say… white stone… heheh…_

Link tried to scramble to his feet but the air was syrup. The noxious brew slid down his throat and choked him. Link coughed out the jellied air and swung his gaze around fearfully.

_LET…_

Link found himself on his feet, spinning around in circles.

_ME…_

Link tried to escape. He would've tried harder if he really existed. But with each death a little part of him died. And after so many, eventually, all of him would die. But that wasn't for a long time, years, or maybe seconds. Who could decide the worth of time?

Time with, her?

Link tried to think of who she was, but a thousand destructions clouded his memory. At the same moment a heavy voice spoke from all around.

_IN._

Something bad happened.

* * *

A thousand deaths. Ten thousand. Or only two? Link had lost count. He couldn't count much of anything now. Any event that lasted more than a few seconds was too eternal for him to take notice of. He knew small things. The time it took for a tear to fall from his eye to his chin, he knew that interval well. Coughing blood was a good way to measure time as well. If he coughed and a single drop of blood came out, then it had only taken a second, but if a cough drew the whole multitude of two drops from inside him, then it could've been any amount of time.

Hours, it might've taken hours to cough out two drops of blood. Or days, maybe lifetimes. Of course, lifetimes weren't measured in years, or weeks, or days. Usually not even in hours. Minutes were the currency of the age, and seconds were precious. But if he could cash them all in just to see that, someone again, then he would.

There had been a picture. Long before now, there had been a picture of a woman with red hair, but now it was gone. Link didn't know where he had lost it, or when, or how long ago. He wasn't even sure why he wanted it back, or if. It was picture of a woman with red hair, and he no longer had it in his pocket. Those were facts, and facts were precious among things that constantly broke the laws he made for them.

Sometimes gravity didn't work, or it worked too well and turned his unwitting body into rough pink slime within a matter of moments. It didn't matter.

Link stood in a room full of pictures. One was of a girl. She had red hair. Another was of a girl. She had red hair. The next was of a girl. She had red hair. The fourth was a girl. She had red hair. Who had red hair? Someone did. Someone important, or maybe not. Link looked around at the pictures. The first one was of a girl. She had red hair…

The second picture of the girl had dark red eyes. Each feature seemed shaded in the black of night and the red of dried blood. Her fingernails had been left to grow long and ragged. Teeth poked out of her withered mouth just as frequently as the soft pink stubs of empty gums.  
She crawled out of the picture, moving like a slug. One hand clawed forward, falling empty handed and then latching onto the picture frame. The next movement drew her body out of the picture.

Link was frozen throughout this. He stood stock still throughout the whole thing. Blood flowed through him slowly, scratching the insides of his veins like powdered glass inside of him.

The girl stepped forward, and suddenly she was a painting again. Pounding fists seemed frozen behind a shield of canvas. Her eyes radiated hatred and seemed to burrow down through Link's skull and brand his brain directly.

Link stepped back away from the painting and felt a hand on his shoulder. As it pulled away, Link could distinctly feel the slight stickiness of slowly drying blood on the fingers. They hung onto his coat longer than the others by a chilling second.

With the speed of a thousand hours, Link spun around and found himself face to face with the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She had deep red hair, and pale smooth skin, and blue eyes that stabbed him like knives.

In a fit of fancy, Link swore he could feel those knives digging into him. Blood flowed from the invisible wounds and Link bled to death.

The girl's countenance burst with blood coming out from her pores. It was dark blood, nearly black. Seeping like mud down her face, it dripped down her chin and fell from there. Link could see it collecting on the breast of her white dress, staining the fabric instantly. For a while it soaked in, then, once the fabric was saturated, it began to pour down in thick globules and dirty streams.

Fingers dug into Link's eyes at the same moment teeth met his flesh. Fingers dug and teeth tore. Blood welled up through those wounds. It poured like a waterfall and spurted for a moment. Pain stabbed through Link's eye sockets, sharing the space with purposefully gouging fingers.

Link collapsed backward, laughing. The pain could just pass through him with the effortlessness of ultimate agony. Tears came with the laughter, for it was the laughter of insanity. The tears were there in support of the pain. The pain come from the bloody wounds, and ultimately led to death.

Link's death, in particular.


	6. Gave Up

Leather straps cut into Link's wrists and ankles. The cool metal of the table was hard beneath him, wearing down already weary muscles. The table was at an angle, 45degrees to the ground, and Link could feel every ounce of gravity dragging him down against the restraints. They cut into his wrists and ankles, always cutting, always him.

A dim room, lit by nothing at all despite the white luminance that seemed to be stabbing straight toward his eyes. Jabbing down at him, punching holes in his head with its blinding brightness. Something moved beyond the light, though Link could only see the faintest glimmer of movement.

It was coming closer. Link couldn't see anything moving, nor could he hear that something's movement, but all the same it was coming closer. Any second now it would be here. Right upon him with all of its terrifying ferocity. It was coming it was coming it was coming it was…

Something bit into Link's chest, a white hot pain that shot across his body in one straight line from left to right, A to Z. Link could feel the line starting to grow hot, blood starting to seep gingerly through the apparent wound. It dripped down his body, soaking into the untorn remnants of his shirt and running across his skin.

Link could feel a scream starting to rip its way out of his throat, but the sound was interrupted by wild laughter from the figure behind the light. The laughter was maniacal, hysterical, entertained.

Entertained… He was entertainment… Entertained… Link was a toy… Entertained…

This would never end…

This would never end…

This would…

White hot needles buried themselves in Link. Not confined to a single area or limb, the needles dug into ever surface of himself at once. They stabbed down through his flesh, ripping and tearing a thin shaft through the meat of his arms and legs and torso. The needles burned like fire against his inner flesh. They streaked down through him until they reached bone, stabbing in and splintering that which they met in their wild crusade through his body.

Screams were cut off by laughter, laughter so loud that it shook the table, shaking the very needles in their fleshy tunnels. Shaking the shards of bone that floated through Link's perforated flesh. Entertainment… Entertainment… Entertainment… This would never end… Never end…

Something was coming near. A torch? No. A candle? No. Red hot burning coals? No.

Yes.

The coals were poured all over Link's body which was suddenly horizontal to allow them a space to rest. The searing heat of the coals was enough to drive spikes of pain into Link's mind, shattering the brief and fragile wall he'd managed to erect. The shards of the wall dug into his mind and killed him from within while the coals and the switch and the needles did it from without.

Burning stabbing burning cutting stabbing dragging stabbing ripping cutting killing breaking killing breaking

Link screamed and this time his voice managed to go unhindered. It boomed inside the tiny room, bouncing back to him and showing the weakness it held. A weak voice, weak cries. Strong pain. A weak body, a weak mind. Strong pain, so strong. Stronger than anything else that had ever existed. Stronger than love, or fear, or reality. Stronger than the sun, and the moon, and the goddesses and stronger than all the insects inside an anthill.

The pain coursed through his body like blood, filling Link's veins with a sickening serum of excruciating ingredients. The pain kept going, kept going. The pain kept going through Link until he stopped. That was the only moment the pain stopped. Only for a moment.

A moment of death, then a lifetime of pain.

* * *

Link was in a field. His pulse raced in his ears like drums held to either side of his head.

_Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump…_

Looking down, Link saw that the grass was not grass. Toothpick sized branches sporting tiny clumps of greenery. Brown trunks no thicker than Link's little finger. Trees.

Now there was something moving among them. Something tiny. It was nearly concealed in Link's own shadow. The thing moved so fast, yet Link knew fully that all he had to do was reach his hand down and pick it up.

He did that, snatched the tiny thing up before it knew what happened. Link drew the thing up closer to his face to look at it. A tiny man, with blonde hair and tiny eyes that shone with fear and confusion and…

Something miniscule and powerful stabbed into Link's eye. He could feel it digging into the soft tissue there. A bit of liquid came rolling out and down his cheek.

But there was something else happening beside the immense pain that was distinctive in its own right. There was a word for it. Like remembering something that you've always remembered, or seeing something you'd seen before. Like memory crossed with expectation. Something of that word hailed from far away, but Link still knew what those particular syllables meant when stuck together in that particular order.

_Déjà vu_

Link's arm reached back down with the lightning speed of reflex. His right arm sped toward the falling dot, trying with the speed and desperation provoked only by real and true fear. No part of Link had any clue toward why he felt such deep-seated fear. Something bad was going to happen, something bad would happen, something bad was happening, something bad had happened.

Link felt a tiny _something_ touch the edge of his hand and an outside source of pain was suddenly fed wholeheartedly into his left shoulder. A searing pain, a stretching, tearing feeling. Something had been taken away from him. Link felt off balance, leaning hard to his right.

The world exploded in pain, covering Link from head to toe, inside and out. A bomb went off inside of him, or on the outside but it covered the whole surface of him equally.

Or maybe just the matching part. The part that had hit the ground in that lifetime so long ago, when Link had been the tiny one.

* * *

Drifting floating twisting changing sinking falling drowning airless cold blinking fear pain fear pain fear…

Link felt himself moving slowly. He couldn't see anything, just an infinite darkness that extended in all directions forever. Endless darkness, like something else… _something…_

However, the endlessness abruptly ended. Or, actually, the darkness stopped being infinite. Something different and not altogether dark appeared to Link's eye. Something white in the distance. Just a speck of a different color, but that was huge when compared to the perceived endlessness of the darkness.

Link wanted to see the white thing closer. He wanted to investigate the only difference in this place. Somehow he began to drift in that direction, heading straight toward the tear in the darkness.

That was what it was, in truth. A vast rip in the fabric of the darkness. A long horizontal slice through which something white was visible.

Link floated closer to the white thing and instantly became aware of its true identity. One, large, circular, eye. In the center Link could finally make out a blood red iris.

A certain ominous aspect of this color failed to attract Link's attention.

Link floated closer and closer to the eye, locked in a deathmatch staring contest with the massive thing. It swiveled in its socket, so as to watch Link. He moved slowly through the emptiness, approaching the eye straight on.

It never occurred to Link that he was destined to run straight into the eye. His course led straight into the center of the rift, but he never noticed.

At least, not until the eye moved. Not in the swiveling motion it had used to get a better look at him. Instead, the eye was pulled away from the rift, revealing a tiny portion of a face the color of death. Almost as if a giant was peeking through a crack in a wall.

Link floated on, straight toward the rift.

Instead of an eye, something else moved up to the place in the rift. Something moist and warm, deep and full of teeth. A mouth filled the rift now, ready to devour anything that happened to pass through that space.

_His course led straight into the center of the rift._

The constant floating carried Link toward the mouth, through the rift, and into the mouth. The first instant he touched onto the massive and lumpy tongue, the jaw bit down. The roof of the mouth slammed down atop Link and knocked him backward. He fell so that his neck lay across a line of hard, sharp, uniform _somethings_.

Looking up, Link could see the upper teeth for just a moment before they bit down on him, severing his spine in one snap. The teeth clicked together after they had cut through him.

* * *

His eyes opened and Link saw only white. White floors, white walls, white ceilings. All covered with white tiles. No dirt marked the surface of the tiles. Pristine white. Link couldn't even see the cracks between the tiles, they were so perfect.

The first sound to come out of Link's mouth was a scream. A long wordless scream that bounced around the room. It echoed off of the perfect tiles, each tile a mirror made specifically to reflect his pain back on him.

Link was standing, and from a standing position he began to run. He had no clue where he was going, but he just knew he had to escape. From what he had no clue. He just _had to_.

Link ran straight forward, screaming, until he was about to run into the far wall. At that point he turned sharply to his left and kept going. A few steps later he turned left again, then again, then again. Running in circles around the perimeter of a perfectly square room made of perfectly square tiles.

Link tripped over something that wasn't there and he was thrown to the ground. He skidded on the polished surface and he felt blood beginning to flow from the impossible scrapes on his arms. Link just lay there, bleeding and crying and screaming. The crying came in wordless sobs, but each and every scream was the same.

A word that Link had surely never heard before. He didn't know what it meant. It could've been a person's name, a type of knife, a city, a species of deer, or even a number.

But every time Link screamed so hard his lungs felt like burning to ashes, he screamed the word malon. Something silly and uncertain. Something made up and forgotten. Malon. A word that he couldn't have remembered if he knew to try.

"Come out and play won't you play with us please come out we want to play with you and have fun and be happy…"

Link couldn't move, wouldn't move if he could. But he couldn't. Link was frozen where he lay.

"We just want to have fun maybe touch you a bit oh but we won't tear no never that we won't make you bleed very much…"

"No… no… no… no… no… no… no…," Link murmured. A charm, a curse, a wish. "No…"

"Please let us touch that's all we really want is to reach down and grab hold no don't worry we won't tear won't tear you please come play with us if you don't come out then we'll have to come in to you…"

"No... no… no… no."

"Okay, fine."

The room exploded inward. White tiles burst and were turned to cascading dust. Through each new opening, an arm reached, a dozen arms, ten thousand arms. Black arms, like ink and shadows turned one. All of the perfect white tiles broke within a few seconds. From every opening came a million arms, all reaching and grabbing at Link.

They took hold of him and carried him way in a thousand different directions.

* * *

The air was so cold, but by this time Link always did his very best to forget he was alive. Any attempt at survival was just a joke. He would die, he always died. Link felt his hands shaking in the frosty air. He'd died a thousand times, a thousand times a thousand. Then multiply that by a thousand.

He'd died a thousand times more than that.

His body was broken. It was always broken. Where was the realism of playing with a toy that never broken and never got dirty. He had even aged to the point where Link was like an old man. His body ached in the cold and his mind ached in his body. Pain would be coming soon. Fast pain or slow pain, it didn't matter. Soon enough he would be in agony, and soon after that he would be dead.

Link laid there in the cold, his body stretched out atop the icy floor. Link could feel the frost crawling up him. It dug into his flesh, coloring his fingers until they might've been charcoal. Then his hands, they burned away and were replaced by black bundles of ash.

"Where am I…?"

Link spun around so fast that his body ached. He leapt up from the ground and stared out the person standing there. A full person. No hurt, no lasting damage. New.

The first…

Link could see the other one's hands' shaking, his teeth chattering. Link chuckled, seeing the younger version's pain. It had been so easy back then, and it had gotten so much worse.

The other one spun around and stared at Link, a mixture of fear and revulsion evident on his face. "Who are you? What is this place?" the other one demanded.

Link chuckled, reveling in the conversation. He'd never met another person in any of the past million lifetimes.

"Wish I knew I don't know why it happened don't let it go away…" his words crawled out from between shaking teeth. Each syllable was smashed up against next and barely distinguishable from the previous.

By it he meant that… malon thing. He had no clue who or what it was, but for some reason he thought it was important. That was an important thing to say.

Link could feel death creeping over him. An icy hand he'd grown to know so well over the past million lifetimes. But he had to get his out.

"It's been forever but that's no time at all It just started one day don't let it take you oh goddesses don't let it. Don't let it in…" That wasn't any time, none at all. A million lifetimes was time, a thousand was a second. But don't let it in, don't let it. Don't let it in, don't let it…

Link could feel that icy hand draping itself over him. It grasped his heart in its massive hand and squeezed. Link coughed and a spot of blood spattered the pure white ice. Link collapsed and froze to death.

* * *

After this there is a 500 word epilogue, and since it is so short I'll be posting it earlier. It will be titled Silence and will be posted Tues. Thanks for reading


	7. Silence

Malon woke up early as she always did. The sun wouldn't be coming over the horizon for at least another hour, and that way they would have time to get a head start on chores that would be insufferable in the heat of day. Malon sat up in bed and stretched her arms out to the sides, yawning at the same time.

"Link…" she murmured, noticing her husband's sleeping form beside her. Through the corner of her eye, Malon could just barely see him lying there beneath the blankets.

Letting out a slight chuckle, she leaned over and shook him gently on the shoulder. "Come on, it's time to wake up."

Something in the back of Malon's mind registered the strangeness of this. Link had always been a light sleeper, and he'd almost always woken up before her. Even before the habit was made necessary by the fields that needed to be tended and the animals that needed to be cared for.

As she shook him slightly more vigorously, Malon saw his lips move slightly. Just a single syllable escaped his lips, but it served to unnerve Malon.

"No…"

"Wake up honey," Malon said trying to pull him up by one of his arms. She managed to suspend his body a few inches above the bed before she gave up and let him fall back down.

His mouth started moving again, the same word over and over again. Whispering now, "No… no… no… no.."

"What's wrong?" Malon asked, fear creeping into her voice, "Come on, wake up Link, it's just a dream."

His words were more feverish now, croaks more than whispers, hysteria laced into every word. "No! No… no…" It came as a sob now, have choking and half screaming. Then he was screaming, at the top of his lungs shouting the word over and over again.

Link was flailing in the bed, his arms striking out everywhere. Malon pulled back just out of range and watched with a sob choking in her throat. What was happening to him? What was wrong?

Screaming, flailing, sobbing, Link's hands reached down suddenly and took hold of his shirt. At two random points they gripped the fabric and pulled, tearing the shirt apart.

Then suddenly he was still, completely, totally still.

Malon could hardly breathe as she looked down at him. Her hands were tight together, gripping each other to keep from trembling. She bit her lip to keep from sobbing.

Malon could see something on Link's exposed chest, as if he had been branded. She moved slowly toward him, to scared to check for a pulse or to watch his chest too closely for breathing. All she could focus on was the emblazoned letteres standing out from his skin.

_Thanks for the fun_

_Game over_

* * *

Sorry for not posting tuesday like I planned to, but life happened and I didn't have time. Well, better late than never. I hope you enjoyed it.


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